Role-Swapping, All in the Family

Role-Swapping, All in the Family

Article excerpt

SAY the words "role reversal" and most people think of couples
trading places - husbands assuming the role of full-time parents
and wives becoming full-time breadwinners. Far more common, if less
trendy, is another approach involving intergenerational swaps
between parents and children.

Some mornings, residents of a certain upscale neighborhood in
Cambridge, Mass., have observed a different news carrier delivering
their paper. Instead of the 13-year-old boy who usually brings the
Boston Globe to their door, they have seen a tall, lanky man whose
face is definitely familiar. He is the newsboy's father, who
occasionally totes a satchel of papers before going off to his
regular job as governor of the state.

Gov. William Weld has filled in for his son when the boy has
been ill. So far, the Globe reports, the father has performed well:
the paper has received no complaints about late deliveries.

The governor's unusual duties may be newsworthy because of his
high-profile status. Yet he is hardly the only parent to pinch-hit
for a child. In cities and suburbs across the country, neither snow
nor rain nor sleet nor summer heat keeps some fathers and mothers
from their appointed rounds as unpaid substitutes on their
offspring's paper routes. This time of year in particular, as
children head off to camp, parents may be left quite literally
holding the (canvas) bag.

Our weekly suburban paper sometimes arrives courtesy of a mother
who expertly lobs papers from her car window as she cruises slowly
through the neighborhood. Is her child busy? Ill? Tired of such a
low-paying job? Only the mother knows for sure.

Years ago, when patriarchs were patriarchs and matriarchs were
matriarchs, this kind of public role reversal probably would have
been unthinkable. It would have signaled to the community that the
next generation was definitely going soft. Now, as family roles
have become less rigid, a new willingness exists to improvise as
situations require.

The flexibility goes beyond part-time jobs. What parent hasn't
listened as children eagerly promise to do anything - everything! -
if only the parents will let them have a pet. …